Mountain Men
Mountain Men were trappers , fur traders , explorers, and adventurers who roamed the Rocky Mountains in the first half of the 19th century . Her main interests were in hunting beavers and selling their pelts, with some also interested in exploring the west.
history
Between 1820 and 1840, approximately 3,000 non-Native American men lived and hunted in the Rocky Mountains. This period was the peak of the beaver hunt. Most of the Mountain Men were employees of various fur trading companies, especially the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and the American Fur Company , and in the early days also the Missouri Fur Company . The life of the employees was organized on the basis of military discipline.
In 1824, the rendezvous system was introduced: the fur trading companies brought supplies to special locations in the summer, traded with the trappers there, and in the fall shipped the furs south across the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. William Henry Ashley was the first to use this system with his Rocky Mountain Fur Company .
Beaver skins were necessary for the production of beaver hats , a fashion that originally came from England but disappeared again in the 1840s. Simultaneously with the decrease in the demand for beaver pelts, there was a decline in the beaver population due to excessive hunting. This, together with the better development of the west, for example through the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail , heralded the end of the classic Mountain Men . From the mid-1830s onwards, bison skins became more important, and in 1850 they dominated business.
Well-known mountain men
- James P. Beckwourth
- Jim Bridger
- Kit Carson
- John Jeremiah Johnson
- Jacques La Ramee
- Thomas Fitzpatrick
- Etienne Provost
- Jedediah Smith
- William Sublette
Mountain Men in Media
In 1980 the film The Mountain Men (German: Duell am Wind River ) with Charlton Heston was released .
literature
- Dietmar Kuegler: Freedom in the wilderness - trappers, mountain men, fur traders - the American fur trade. Publisher for American Studies , Wyk 1989, ISBN 3-924696-33-0
